Danny Mayer for Mayor: Lexington-Fayette Urban County

[Dialogic would like to make this clear that we are simply disseminating this message from Danny Mayer in his independent campaign for LFUCG Mayor, a campaign which we support]

Lexington-Fayette Urban County,

I am a professor at Bluegrass Community and Technical College, a fourteen year resident of the northside, a former publisher of the media conglomerate North of Center, a father, and an avid hiker and paddler of area streets and waters. (I'm also a 2007 graduate of UK, where I received my PhD in American Literature.)

My campaign will focus on “the whole horse”--creating diverse and functional live/work/play communities that extend well beyond Main Street and that do not unfairly commit the city's citizenry to paying off high cost/low reward inner urban developments. My campaign will be more committed to relevant local class ideas than pay-big world class projects. How do we spur development in the neighborhoods in which we live? How might we culturally and economically connect our citizens in ways that do not require of them to travel downtown for art, culture, food, and jobs?

Here are some articles from North of Center that might highlight my thinking on some topics. I recognize that I have been depicted in media stories, incorrectly, as running a “small scale” or “limited” or “subordinate” campaign. I hope these writings show that my candidacy is a serious one and that it grows out of many years of thinking and researching and writing on this area.

Thanks,

Danny Mayer, candidate for Mayor of Fayette Urban County

What I'm for:

(1) #FreeLextran is a project that I developed and presented to the city council in September, to no response. After being turned down by one council member, I have been able to secure help from 1st District Representative Chris Ford on the project. In two weeks, we'll meet with Rocky Burke (LexTran), Jim Clark (LexArts), Jeff Fugate (Lex. DDA), and Denise Brown (one of the proposed muralists from the project) to discuss possibilities for the project's phase 1 implementation.

(2) The Free LexTran project is a newer, though smaller, extension of my interest in creating county-wide access to economic growth, healthy living, cultural activity, and public transportation. A larger-scale example would be my entry in the Mayer's Challenge, which I submitted to Jim Gray.

(3) Small-scale project: Who doesn't love a parade? "Parade County, USA"

No to Rupp:

(4) "A matter of value," written in Feb 2012, lays out why I think Rupp is a bad value in more abstract terms.

(5) "Rupp will be an expensive opportunity," written at the end of 2011, lists a number of arguments against the project that are more specific and "numbers based."

(6) "What we'd do: $2.5 million from LFUCG," lays out alternate plans for spending the city's (thus far) $2.5 million investment in the Rupp Opportunity Zone.

County observations:

(7) Here's my take on where I see city money/power going (city and horse country), and where it doesn't go (the neighborhoods where we live): "Propping up Main Street."

(8) "Austerity comes to Lexington," written in June 2011, places Jim Gray's budget discussions within the context of national and global austerity debates. I'd note that while the LFUCG budget has increased since he proposed his 2011 budget, few of the "safety net" type of city agencies have seen their budgets increase from 2011 levels.

(9) City development focus areas are intertwined with gentrification. Here's the most recent writing of mine on that: "Some paragraphs on northside gentrification."

Personal:

(10) I'm an avid paddler of area waters. Here's one of a series I helped write of Kentucky River trips: "Frankfort stinks like shit."

(11) I'm the grandson of an artist, union man, WWII vet, and orphan: "Old man gets older."

(12) I'm married and 2.5 year old daughter. "May Day Kid attends first protest"

Danny Mayer

For more info or to contact:

mayer.danny@gmail.com

Resources for January 28, 2014

"From Jennifer Seibel, the director of Miss Representation, comes an exploration of American masculinity"

Crowther, Alicia. "Amnesty International Campaign Shows Last Meals of Wrongly Executed" The Lived Prison (February 23, 2013)

Adam Mordecai for Upworthy: "9 Out Of 10 Americans Are Completely Wrong About This Mind-Blowing Fact: Wealth Inequality in America."

Fisher, Mark. "Exiting the Vampire Castle." The North Star (November 22, 2013)





Fakhoury, Hanni. "The U.S. Crackdown on Hackers Is Our New War on Drugs" Wired (January 23, 2014)





Wolchover, Natalie. "A New Physics Theory of Life" Quanta (January 22, 2014)





Marshall, Peter. Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2010.

Resources for January 27, 2014

Snag Films has a wide selection of free documentaries available to watch online

Medium Cool (USA: Haskell Wexler, 1969)

Negro, Lisa. "Service is My Art." Smells Like Human Spirit #119 (January 14, 2014) ["Lisa Nigro is founder of Inspiration Corporation, an organization that helps people who are affected by homelessness and poverty to improve their lives and increase self-sufficiency. While working as a police officer in Chicago during the late-eighties, she began began to hand out meals to people on the streets of the city’s Uptown neighborhood. Since then, the initiative has evolved to serve 3,000 individuals a year by providing a variety of services including meals, housing, employment preparation, and vocational training. In 2010, Mrs. Nigro received the Citizens Medal, one of the nation’s highest public service awards, and recently started another initiative called Transform U. "]

Khalek, Rania. "On Objectivity in Journalism, Mainstream Vs. Independent Media, the School-to-Prison Pipeline, and more." Smells Like Human Spirit #118 (January 13, 2014) ["Rania Khalek is an independent journalist living in the Washington, D.C. area whose work aims to cover the plight of the underclass and marginalized. She runs the website ‘dispatches from the Underclass’, which can be found at RaniaKhalek.com, and boasts an impressive resume of features at The Nation, Al Jazeera America, and Citizen Radio, just to name a few. In this episode ... Rania makes her case for why objectivity is not possible in journalism, examines the positive aspects and limitations of independent media, and discusses the disturbing national trend of children being ‘funneled’ from public schools to the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Other topics include Nelson Mandela, the NSA, and more.]

Matthew Phillips for Business Week: "Goldman: Corporate Profits Grew Five Times Faster Than Wages in 2013"

Holland, Joshua. "Bumbling, Blame and Bankruptcy in Wake of West Virginia Chemical Spill." Moyers and Co. (January 24, 2014)

Peck, Adam. "There Has Been an Average of One School Shooting Every Other School Day so far This Year." Moyers and Co. (January 23, 2014)

Bernays, Anne. "Edward Bernays’ daughter Anne discusses life with the ‘Father of PR’." Smells Like Human Spirit #120 (January 15, 2014)

Mistich, Dave. "Appalshop's 'Chemical Valley'." West Virginia Public Broadcasting (January 24, 2014)

Resources for January 25, 2014

Bryan Merchant for Motherboard: "Maybe the Most Orwellian Text Message a Government's Ever Sent"





Unwelcome Guests podcasts:

Dave Neal, at al.: Episode #20 - "Tactics of Resistance and Repression (Discussion on non-violence and Property Destruction, Police Brutality)"

Bruderhof Radio, Chris Sturr, Michael Parenti, RNC demonstrators: Episode #21 - "Crime Pays (Profits and Social Control)"

Metanoia Films has the remastered version of Scott Noble's PsyWar online

The Power Principle: Corporate Empire and the Rise of the National Security State (Metanoia Films: Scott Noble, 2013: Part 1: Empire, 95 mins; Part II: Propaganda, 98 mins; Part III: Apocalypse, 70 mins)

Paul Waldman for The American Prospect: "Why Republicans Keep Calling Women Sluts: They just can't help themselves, and here's why."

Mill, Frederick B. "Venezuela and the Battle Against Transgenic Seeds." Revolución Alimentaria (December 7, 2013)

Mr.Death "The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter" (UK/USA: Errol Morris, 1999: 91 mins) [To watch the documentary online]


The Marriage of Maria Braun (West Germany: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1979: 120 mins)

Propaganda (Key Concept)

"Astroturf." Sourcewatch (May 26, 2012)

"Astroturf Blogging." Sourcewatch (December 11, 2011)

"Category: Astroturf." Sourcewatch (No Date: Ongoing Archive of Links To Reports)

Atkinson, Michael. "Archival Trouble: The fiction-free science fiction of Adam Curtis" Moving Image Source (February 16, 2012)

Ball, Norman. "The Power of Auteurs and the Last Man Standing: Adam Curtis' Documentary Nightmares." Bright Lights Film Journal #78 (November 2012)

Bender, Stephen. "Propaganda, Public Relations, and the Not So New Dark Age." LIP (Winter 2006)

Benton, Michael Dean. "Astroturf and Front Group Research: The Center for Union Facts." Dialogic Cinephilia (January 20, 2014)

---. "The Many-Headed Hydra." Politics and Culture (August 10, 2010)

---. "Monsanto (Multinational Agricultural Biotechnology Corporation): Peace and Conflict Studies Archive." Dialogic (January 25, 2014)

---. "Response to a Message About the Threat of Islamo-Fascism." Dialogic (October 1, 2008)

Bernays, Edward L. "Manipulating Public Opinion." American Journal of Sociology 33.6 (May 1928): 958-971.

---. "Molding Public Opinion." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (May 1935): 82-87.

---. Propaganda. NY: Horace Liveright, 1928.

The Century of the Self (BBC Documentary: Adam Curtis, 2002)

Cho, Violet. "Thauk gya paw hee thwi deh thwi (Blood’s Oath to Beautiful Flower) — drama of insurgency in a Burmese Pwo Karen Film." Jump Cut #55 (Fall 2013)

Chomsky, Noam. Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda." NY: Seven Stories Press, 1997. [Excerpts from key sections of the 2nd Edition]

---. Powers and Prospects: Reflections on Human Nature and the Social Order. London: Pluto Press, 1996.

---. "Propaganda American Style." Propaganda Review (Winter 1987/1988)

Chomsky, Noam and Edward Herman. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. NY: Pantheon Books, 2002.

Cull, Nicholas J., David Culbert and David Welch. Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia 1500 - Present. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003.

"Deconstructing Edward Bernay's Propaganda (Part 1)." Smells Like Human Spirit #60 (April 12, 2013)

"Deconstructing Edward Bernay's Propaganda (Part 2)." Smells Like Human Spirit #63 (April 20, 2013)

"Deconstructing Edward Bernay's Propaganda (Part 3)." Smells Like Human Spirit #64 (April 26, 2013)

"Deconstructing Edward Bernay's Propaganda (Part 4)." Smells Like Human Spirit #67 (May 3, 2013)

"Deconstructing Edward Bernay's Propaganda (Part 5)." Smells Like Human Spirit #70 (May 10, 2013)

Dyer, Gwynne, Mark Crispin Miller and David Robb. "Producing Killers and Selling Wars (Why Any Mother's Son will Do)" Unwelcome Guests #513 (August 21, 2010)

Foster, John Bellamy and Robert McChesney. "The Internet’s Unholy Marriage to Capitalism." Monthly Review 62.10 (March 2011)

Graeber, David. Debt: The First 5,000 Years." NY: Melville House, 2011.

Graeber, David and Richard Wolff. "The Vast Machine to Perpetuate Hopelessness (Marxian Class Analysis 1)." Unwelcome Guests #624 (October 6, 2012)

Greenwald, Glenn. "AP believes it found evidence of Iran's work on nuclear weapons: A primitive graph provided by 'a country critical of Iran's atomic program' indicts the news outlet more than Tehran." The Guardian (November 28, 2012)

---. "How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive, and Destroy Reputations." Intercept (February 24, 2014)

Human Resources: Social Engineering in the 20th Century. (Metanoia Films: Scott Noble, 2010: 119 mins)

Lippmann, Walter. Public Opinion. NY: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1922.

McChesney, Robert W. and John Nichols. "The Bull Market: Political Advertising." Monthly Review (April 1, 2012)

Miller, Mark Crispin. "Propaganda 101: How Do You Manufacture Consent?" History Counts (July 4, 2010)

Mirrlees, Tanner. "How to Read Iron Man: The Economics, Geopolitics and Ideology of an Imperial Film Commodity." Cineaction #92 (2014)

Pilger, John. "Power, Illusion, and America's Last Taboo." Dandelion Salad (September 2, 2009)

---. The War You Don't See. (UK: 2010, 97 mins)

Popova, Maria. "Obey: How the Rise of Mass Propaganda Killed Populism." Brain Pickings (February 6, 2013)

The Power Principle: Corporate Empire and the Rise of the National Security State (Metanoia Films: Scott Noble, 2013: Part 1: Empire, 95 mins; Part II: Propaganda, 98 mins; Part III: Apocalypse, 70 mins)

PsyWar (Metanoia Films: Scott Noble, 2010: 98 mins)

Rampton, Sheldon. "Books on Propaganda." PR Watch (July 7, 2009)

"Resources for Studying Propaganda." Sourcewatch(ongoing archive)

Ritter, Scott, John Stauber, Pepi Leistyna, Loretta Alper, and Tom Scott. "Stupefying the Group Mind (Managing the Class War with PR and TV)." Unwelcome Guests #301 (April 8, 2006)

Roos, Jerome. "Venezuela: it’s the opposition that’s anti-democratic." ROAR (February 21, 2014)

Roszak, Theodore. "Politics of Information and the Fate of the Earth." Progressive Librarian (Winter/Spring 1993): 3-14.

Rushkoff, Douglas. "They Say." Coercion: Why We Listen to What "They" Say (Penguin, 1999)

Trotter, Wilfred. Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. 2nd Edition. London: T.F. Unwin Ltd., 1922.

Wall, Richard. "Who's Afraid of Noam Chomsky?" Lew Rockwell (2004)

Wilson, Michael S. "Noam Chomsky — ‘Everyday Anarchist’: The Modern Success Interview" Modern Success (August 20, 2013)

Re-opening Dialogic

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